The significance of career commitment in generating commitment to organizational change among information technology personnel.

Rashid, Humayun ; Zhao, Lin

INTRODUCTION

Modern organizations need their employees to adapt to constant changes with a minimal amount of disruption. However, dysfunctional reactions to change, in terms of poor commitment to new processes, appear to be far more prevalent than the authentic embracing of new changes (Fedor et al., 2006). In order to secure the desired form of commitment, managers spend a great deal of time, effort, and capital implementing elaborate change management and communication strategies, often with little success (Sumner and Yager, 2004; Sumner et al., 2005). While the importance of an individual's commitment to the success of a change has been well established in the literature (Meyer & Allen, 1996; Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001), there has been little research on the impact of change messages on individual commitment to change.

It has been discussed that people who are committed to the organization are more likely to embrace organizational changes (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002). Also, Armenakis et al. (1999) extensively covers the role of communication in helping employees to make sense of organizational changes. We argue that, compared to organizational commitment, it is actually the commitment of professionals to their career that amplifies the effect of change message on individual's attitude towards organizational change. Even though organizational commitment is desirable during organizational change, it is more effective when employees are committed to their careers rather than just to the organization.

Through a survey of IT professionals in two large centers of a global bank, we collected 575 responses to test our model. Findings followed by discussions and practical implications are also presented.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES

The concept of organizational commitment has evolved over the last three decades, starting with Porter et al. (1974) which conceptualized commitment with the following factors: "(a) strong belief in and acceptance of the organization's goals and values, (b) a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and (c) a definite desire to maintain organizational membership". More current research defines affective commitment as "the desire to remain", continuance commitment as "the perceived cost of leaving", and normative commitment as "the perceived obligation to remain"(Meyer, et al., 1990; Meyer and Allen, 1991). These factors enable the differentiation among commitment forms that are characterized by different mindsets, while individuals may simultaneously experience different combinations of all three mindsets. These three components altogether become an employee's commitment profile.

Commitment to change is particularly important now, given the speed and complexity of change in a distributed, global business environment. The command and control model of shaping employees' behaviors and attitudes at work is giving way to a model of "developing committed employees who can be trusted to use their discretion to carry out job tasks in ways that are consistent with changing organizational goals" (Arthur, 1994). Having a committed workforce is becoming a competitive advantage in the industry and various studies (Arthur, 1994; Huselid, 1995; Macduffie, 1995) have shown that commitment strategies are associated with low turnover and high productivity and corporate financial success. Commitment has also been shown to be positively associated with improved organizational functioning (Meyer & Allen, 1997) and even minor changes in employees' work always have significant influences on the bottom line (Cascio, 1982). Many studies have examined antecedents, correlates, and dimensions of organizational commitment and consequences (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Meyer and Allen, 1997; Ketchand and Strawser, 2001), but only a few have addressed the distinction between career commitment and organizational commitment (Darden et al., 1989; McAulay et al., 2006). As the successful implementation of organizational change often needs employees' acceptance and support from various aspects (Fedor et al., 2006), we propose the following theoretical framework of three levels of commitment. In particular, we address the impact of organizational commitment and career commitment on embracing change through change message effectiveness.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Change Message Effectiveness

Communication literature has often talked about the quantity and channels of organizational commitment, but deeper insight occurs through the interpretation of specific change messages (Armenakis et al., 2007). This makes it important to understand the role that different change messages play in generating the acceptance of organizational change by employees.

In any organization, those individuals who are subjected to change try to make sense of the organization transformation based on what they hear, see, and experience; and they formulate their beliefs that become part of their process of deciding whether to support or resist the change. Armenakis et al. (2007) define a belief as "an opinion or conviction about the truth of something that may not be readily obvious or subject to systematic verification" and identify "discrepancy, appropriateness, efficacy, principal support, and personal valence" as the most significant factors to affect an organizational change. Change messages (beliefs) are typically exchanged through social interaction between various levels of the organization (top leaders, change agents, supervisors, and peers). These messages are typically transmitted through various influence strategies depending on the need or life-cycle stage of the change initiative.

Since a positive belief in change increases the chance of employees making a commitment to support the change (Armenakis et al., 2007), change messages through various communication venues from the management help employees understand the change and develop a positive attitude towards the change. This belief in turn leads to enhanced commitment towards the change. Therefore, we hypothesize:

H1: Change message effectiveness is positively associated with commitment to change.

Organizational Commitment

Organizational commitment has been defined and interpreted in a variety of ways (Mathews and shepherd, 2002). According to Arnold et al. (1998), organizational commitment refers to the attachment of a person to his or her organization. Taking a multidimensional view, Meyer (1990) distinguish affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment in employees' organizational commitment profile, and argue that employees can experience these three components simultaneously. Mathews and Shepherd (2002) define organizational commitment as "a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization's goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and a strong desire to maintain membership with the organization". In addition, organizational commitment is found to be a psychological bond that tied the employees to the organization. The nature of this bond is formulated as "compliance, identification and internalization" (O'reily and Chatmen, 1986), and "identification, involvement and loyalty" (Cook and Wall, 1980).

Many studies find that organizational commitment improved job performance and work attitude (Meyer, et al., 1989; Carson et al., 1999; Somers and Birnbaum, 2000; Rayton, 2006), and reduced turnover intention and behavior (Blau & Boal, 1987; Huselid and Day, 1991; Somers, 1995; Trimble, 2006). Furthermore, organizational change research shows that organizational commitment enhanced perceived readiness to organizational change (Madsen et al., 2005), change communication (Elving and Bennebroek Gravenhorst, 2009) and employee acceptance of organizational change (Iverson, 1996). According to Meyer and Allen (1997), employees that are committed to an organization typically believe change communication from their management with regard the changes that management wishes to implement in the organization. They also argue that employees who are committed to the organization will also commit to any organizational changes that are required. Therefore we hypothesize:

H2: Organizational commitment is positively associated with change message effectiveness

H3: Organizational commitment is positively associated with commitment to change.

The combination of H1 and H2 shows the mediating role of change message effectiveness in creating a positive effect towards organizational commitment on commitment to change. H3 posits the direct effect of organizational commitment on commitment to change. According to the clarification of conditions and decision points for mediational type inferences provided by Mathieu and Taylor (2006), we present H1, H2 and H3 to clearly emphasize mediating relationship without the confusion of indirect effects.

Career Commitment

According to Darden, Hampton and Howell (1989) and Lee, Carswell and Allen (2000), career commitment refers to employee's psychological bond to his or her career, which is distinguishable from organizational commitment. That is, an employee may be committed to his or her career only or committed to his or her organization only or committed to both or committed to neither. They also suggest that "some jobs with a high level of transference of skills from one organization to another may engender higher levels of career commitment". It has been observed that knowledge workers, such as IT professionals, have a distinctive nature in their occupational orientations, reward preference, and value systems, and thus career commitment is an important contributing factor. Since employees feel that they have lower job security and feel more uncertainty towards the future given the globalization of business, career commitment gains more interest from researchers (Blau, 1989; Blau, 2003), and some research even suggest that commitment may shift from organization to career (Johnson, 1996; Meyer & Allen, 1997).

Career commitment has a strong influence on an individual's behavior (Chang, 1999). Employees with a high career commitment spend more time improving their skills and had less intentions of changing careers (Aryee and Tan, 1992). Darden, Hampton and Howell (1989) further suggest that employees with high transferrable work skills, such as IT professionals in our study, are more likely to achieve higher levels of career commitment, and thus hold more positive attitude towards their jobs which certainly include effective communications during organizational change. So employees who are very career minded may be interested in putting extra energy into the change communication that deals with the overall organizational change and making extra commitment to support organizational change effort (Arthur and Rousseau, 2001). Therefore we hypothesize:

H4: Career commitment is positively associated with change message effectiveness.

H5: Career commitment is positively associated with commitment to change.

The combination of H1 and H4 shows the mediating role of change message effectiveness in the negative effect of career commitment on commitment to change. H5 posits the direct effect of career commitment on commitment to change.

METHOD

Research Setting, Data Sources, And Sampling

Two software development centers of a large global bank were surveyed online. One of the centers is in Malaysia, and the other one is in India. The Malaysia center has about 800 employees out of which 244 completed the survey. The India center has about 1,300 employees out of which 333 completed the survey. Overall, we obtained complete responses from 577 employees in two sites, for a response rate of 30%. A comparison of the responses from two sites revealed no significant mean differences for study variables. The demographic information of the respondents is summarized in Table 1. After checking the data consistency and homogeneity, we retained 568 individual responses for further analysis.

Measurement And Operationalization

Commitment to change.

Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) define commitment to change as "a force (mind-set) that binds an individual to a course of action deemed necessary for the successful implementation of a change initiative." This mind-set can be reflected to varying degree in three dimensions: "(a) a desire to provide support for the change based on a belief in its inherent benefits (affective commitment to change), (b) a recognition that there are costs associated with failure to provide support for the change (continuance commitment to change), and (c) a sense of obligation to provide support for the change (normative commitment to change)" (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002). That is, employees can feel liable to support a change because they are willing to or forced to. Therefore, the three component scales have 18 items, six for each for affective, continuance and normative commitment to change with alphas of .92, .71 and .78 respectively.

Change message effectiveness

In a set of articles, Armenakis et al. (1993) and Armenakis et al. (1999) outline frameworks specifying the five domains for effective change efforts: discrepancy, efficacy, appropriateness, principal support, and personal valence. These five change messages are measured through a 26item scale that is developed in Armenakis et al. (2007) and produce an alpha ranging from .70 to .92 for discrepancy, from .89 to .95 for appropriateness, from .76 to .86 for efficacy, from .69 to .87 for principal support, and from .78 to .90 for personal valence. Also, the overall composite reliability of change message scale ranges from .90 to .94; however, in our study we are using the individual subscales.

Discrepancy focuses on the issue of whether change is necessary and is normally assessed by the difference between an organization's current performance and those benchmarks (Katz & Kahn, 1978). To motivate individuals to change, an organization must convince individuals that there is something wrong and change is needed. Out of the four items in the original scale for discrepancy, we use three items; and during the EFA/CFA, we drop one item due to cross loading, resulting in a composite reliability of .751.

Appropriateness of the change is distinct from discrepancy because individuals may only agree the changes to some extent, that is, they do not agree with all the changes being proposed. This reticence is carefully intentioned and possibly helpful as individuals make their decisions based on the appropriateness of some particular change. From both the EFA analysis and the literature review of this scale (Armenakis et al., 2007), appropriateness scale items turn out to be very close to affective commitment to change items, one of the dependent variables in the study. Therefore, we decide to drop this scale from the study.

Efficacy addresses the issues of individual's confidence in his or her ability to succeed (Bandura, 1986). According to the expectancy theory of motivation (Vroom, 1964), individuals are willing to attempt a change only if they are likely to succeed. We find efficacy items to be very close to the affective commitment to change in the EFA, so we decide to drop the scale from the study. Principal support is important because any organizational change needs resources and commitment across the institutional hierarchy (Armenakis et al., 2007). Many changes fail because of poor support, so employees hesitate to become actively involved in a change until a strong commitment to support is given. Out of the six items in the original scale for principal support, we use five items; and during the EFA/CFA, we dropped three of them due to cross loading, resulting in a composite reliability of .874.

Personal valence is important because members of the change target ask, "what's in it for me?" Cobb et al. (1995) indicate that an individual will evaluate both positive and negative outcomes of an organizational change, whether the change is fair, and how they are treated in and after the change. So if his/her self-interest is not well protected, a proposed change will likely not be supported (Clarke et al., 1996). We use all five items in the original scale for personal valence and kept three items after the EFA/CFA analysis, resulting in a composite reliability of .819. In excluding the appropriateness and efficacy measures from our analysis, we are consistent with Armenakis et al. (2007) which find discriminant validity issues between these constructs and the other dimensions they identify for messages in certain contexts.

Career commitment.

It is defined as "one's motivation to work in a chosen vocation" (Carson, et al, 1999). Factor analysis yields two dimensions: career planning and career identity, which is consistent with Carson and Bedeian (1994). Career identity builds a tight emotional link with one's career, career planning figures out one's developmental needs and career goals, and career resilience means the resistance of career disruption while facing adversity. Cronbach alphas ranged from .79 to .85 as field tested with 476 respondents in various work settings. For our sample, EFA and CFA analyses lead us to trim two items from Career Identify, two items from Career Planning with resulting composite reliabilities of .827 and .671, respectively.

Organizational commitment.

Fields (2002) summarize eleven well-known measures of organization commitment. One of them by Gregersen (1992) with the specific focus of commitment to parent organization (CPO) and commitment to local firm (CLF) fits global organizational environment in this research setting. This measure separates commitment to a parent company from commitment to a local operation. We use the scale developed by Gregersen (1992) but extend it from five-point Likert scales to seven-point for consistency with rest of the survey. The first factor (Alpha = .84) is composed of four items focusing on commitment to a parent organization. The second factor, also of four items, reflects commitment to local firm (Alpha = .72).

Besides the key constructs presented above, we also include four factors as control variables. Their measurement is summarized as follows.

Competence.

It (work-related self-efficacy) is defined as an individual's belief in his or her capability to perform activities with skill and was analogous to personal mastery (Spreitzer, 1995). It is measured via a 3-item scale on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) and has a alpha of .85 and .83 in samples collected during two separate time periods in the Spreitzer (1995) study.

Job involvement.

This scale is part of a broader organizational culture scale developed by Glasser, Zamanou and Hacker (1987) in the scale development efforts as part of the Organizational Culture Survey (OCS). Two items are dropped due to cross loading after the EFA/CFA analysis on our sample data with the resulting composite reliability of .84.

Growth opportunity.

This scale assesses employee control problems in the area of limited growth opportunities. It is adapted from the original four construct scale consisting of17 items in Remondet and Hansson, 1991. The scale asks respondents to rate both frequency of event occurrence and degree to which the event results in loss of control over employee's job and has the composite alpha of .87 for the overall measure of work-related control problems (Abraham, 1996). We uses all four items of the limited growth opportunities sub-scale but without asking for frequency of event. Two items are dropped due to cross loading after the EFA/CFA analysis on our sample data with the resulting composite reliability of .909.

Fairness of reward.

Moore (2000) create a two item scale for Fairness of Rewards by taking the subset of the scale for distributive justice developed by Niehoff (1993). Fairness of Reward has an alpha of .81 with a sample of 268 IT professionals. Our EFA/CFA confirms the two item scale with the composite reliability of .917.

Method Of Analysis

The analytical approach involves measurement assessment of the key constructs and testing the hypothesized model. Table 1 summarizes the key descriptive statistics for the studies constructs. For the subjective measures, a combination of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedures are used to assess the psychometric properties. We explicitly focused on the evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of the study constructs.

FINDINGS

Measurement Analysis

We estimate a fully disaggregated measurement model with the key observed indicator to ensure that the measures correspond only to their hypothesized constructs and evidenced acceptable reliability and validity. A confirmatory factor analysis of the study constructs using AMOS software yielded the following fit statistics: p2 = 1202.26, d.f. = 564, p < 0.01; NFI = 0.91; NNFI (TLI) = 0.94; CFI = 0.95; RMR = 0.05; RMSEA = 0.045 (90% confidence interval = .04 = .05). On statistical, absolute, and relative fit, as well as substantive grounds, the posited measurement model provides a good fit to the data. Table 3 provides further support for the convergent and discriminant validity of the constructs. The estimated loadings for the relationship between individual indicants and their underlying construct are, without exception, large and significant (t- value > 9.0, p < .01). In addition, the reliability estimates are large and significant, ranging from .84 to .92, with an average reliability index of .88, which exceeds the conventional .70 criterion. In terms of discriminant validity, the variance extracted not only exceeds the average variance shared but also exceeds .50, the threshold value that Fornell and Larcker (1981) recommend. The preceding evidence provides robust support for the convergent and discriminant validity of study constructs.

Hypothesized Model Analysis

According to our empirical results summarized in Table 2, H1, H3 and H4 are supported among five hypotheses that we proposed. Career commitment is positively related to change message effectiveness ([beta] = 1.01, p < .01), which is positively related to commitment to change ([beta] = .72, p < .01). Thus, H1 and H4 are supported. In addition, career commitment has no direct effect on commitment to change ([beta] = -.14, p > .10) after controlling for the effect of change message effectiveness, so H5 is not supported. Based on Shrout and Bolger (2002), the mediation hypothesis is supported if both the antecedent -> intervening and the intervening -> outcome coefficients are significant. Therefore, the results show that change messages fully mediate the relationship between career commitment and commitment to change. On the other path, organizational commitment has no significant effect ([beta] = -.07, p > .10) on change message effectiveness, but directly relates to commitment to change ([beta] = .10, p < .05). So H2 is not supported. Furthermore, this direct effect is positive, which supports H3 indicating that an increasing emphasis on organizational commitment enhances commitment to change.

DISCUSSIONS

As our findings show, career commitment operates very differently than organizational commitment in terms of its impact of change message effectiveness as well and on commitment to change. Most of the change communication literature emphasizes the need to develop organizational commitment so that belief in change can be enhanced. Our findings show no significant relationship between organizational commitment and change messages effectiveness. On the other hand, the role of career commitment is far more important when it comes to the change message effectiveness. In other words, employees who are committed to their careers are more ready to absorb and interpret the change message communication.

However, the end goal of change communication is not just to influence the belief towards the change but go a step further by enhancing the commitment towards the change. In this area, our findings show how organizational commitment and career commitment operate differently. When it comes to the direct effect, organizational commitment does lead to a commitment towards change while career commitment has no direct effect on commitment to change (only indirectly through change message effectiveness).

We want to highlight that in term of effect size, change message effectiveness has the greatest impact on commitment to change, which makes the role of career commitment far more important than organizational commitment in enhancing commitment to change. The direct effect of organizational commitment on commitment to change is much smaller compared to the impact that career commitment has on commitment to change through change message effectiveness. If organizations want to enhance commitment to change, they should help employees become more career focused rather than just try to enhance their commitment to the organization. This is especially true for the loosely-coupled global organizational networks in which employees are increasing finding themselves in which any single organizational commitment may not be that relevant for the overall change success across the organizational network.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The practical implications for our research is that rather than investing time and other resources towards improving the organizational commitment, it is more effective for organizations to invest in helping their employees develop career commitments. During change communication, management can show the link between the organizational change and the career aspirations of the employees to maximize their commitment towards the organizational change effort. If employees see that connection between the organizational change and the advancement of their respective careers, they will indeed be more willing to embrace the change.

Limitations

Even though we collected the data from two different IT centers in two different cultural settings, the data is still is part of one global bank and so any generalization of findings may not be relevant. In addition, two of the constructs, change message effectiveness and commitment to change have high correlation. However, this is largely due the nature of these two constructs, since both of them are designed to study the change process. We believe that they are distinct from one another as the shared variance is still less than 0.30 and other published works acknowledge and work around this limitation as well. For example, Holt et al (2007) explain that the five change messages are more about readiness for change, which is a precursor to resistance and adoption behavior. In our view there is a natural overlap between the constructs but change message effectiveness and commitment to change are still distinct enough in the context of the overall change management process.

Future Research

Our findings on the importance of career commitment in the context of organizational change open a window into the retention research as well, a topic that is very important in the knowledge intensive IT industry. It would be interesting to study which antecedents of career commitment are more critical in the context of organizational change and change communication both for advancing research and for developing practical insights for human resource executives to design their HR strategies in the IT industry in the constantly changing business environment that most IT firms find themselves in.

APPENDIX

OPERATIONAL ITEMS USED TO MEASURE VARIOUS STUDY CONSTRUCTS

Unless otherwise noted, we measured the following items on a seven-point Likert scale where 1 = "strongly disagree" and 7 = "strongly agree." The items marked with (R) were reversed to keep the consistency with other measures.

Commitment to Change (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002)

Affective (ccal-6)

CCA1: I believe in the value of this change to the [pool model]. [q105]

CCA2: This change to the [pool model] is a good strategy for this organization. [q108]

CCA3: I think the management is making a mistake introducing this change. [q111] (R)

CCA4: Change to the [pool model] will serve an important purpose. [q114]

CCA5: Things would be better without this change to the [pool model]. [q117] (R)

CCA6: This change to the [pool model] is not necessary. [q120] (R)

Continuance (cccl-6)

CCC1: I have no choice but to go along with this change. [q107]

CCC2: I feel pressure to go along with this change. [q110]

CCC3: I have too much at stake to resist this change. [q113]

CCC4: It would be too costly for me to resist this change. [q116]

CCC5: It would be too risky to speak out against this change. [q119]

CCC6: Resisting this change is not a viable option for me. [q122]

Normative (ccnl-6)

CCN1. I feel a sense of duty to work toward this change. [q106]

CCN 2. I do not think it would be right of me to oppose this change. [q109]

CCN 3. I would not feel badly about opposing this change. (R) [q112]

CCN 4. It would be irresponsible of me to resist this change. [q115]

CCN 5. I would feel guilty about opposing this change. [q118]

CCN 6. I do not feel any obligation to support this change. (R) [q121]

Change Messages (Armenakis, Bernerth, Pitts, & Walker, 2007)

Discrepancy (cmdl-4)

CMD1: We needed to change the way we did some things in this organization. [q39]

CMD2: We needed to improve the way we operate in this organization. [q45]

CMD3: We needed to improve our effectiveness by changing our operations. [q51]

CMD4: A change was needed to improve our operations. [q57]

Principal Support (cmsl-5)

CMS1: Most of my respected peers will most likely embrace this change. [q42]

CMS2: Top leaders support the change from [team model] to [pool model]. [q48]

CMS3: The majority of my respected peers are dedicated to making this change successful. [q54] [O]

CMS4: My immediate manager encourages me to support this change. [q60]

CMS5: My immediate manager is in favor of the change from [team model] to [pool model]. [q56]

Valence (cmvl-5)

CMV1: This change from [team model] to [pool model] will benefit me. [q43]

CMV2: With this change in my job, I will experience more self-fulfillment. [q49]

CMV3: The change in my job assignments will increase my feelings of accomplishment. [q55] [O]

CMV4: Not embracing this change will have a negative effect on my future career. [q61]

CMV5: I will have the potential to earn higher pay from my job after this change. [q62]

Appropriateness (cmal-5)

CMA1: I believe the change from team model to pool model will have a favorable effect on our operations.

[q40]

CMA2: This change will improve the performance of our organization. [q44]

CMA3: The change that we are implementing is correct for our situation. [q46]

CMA4: When I think about the change from team model to pool model, I realize it is appropriate for our organization. [q52]

CMA5: This change from team model to pool model will prove to be best for our situation. [q58]

Efficacy (cmel-5)

CME1: I have the capability to help implement the change from team model to pool model. [q41]

CME2: I can implement this change in my job. [q47]

CME3: I am capable of successfully performing my job duties after this change is implemented. [q50]

CME4: I believe we can successfully implement this change. [q53]

CME5: We have the capability to successfully implement this change. [q59]

Career Commitment (Carson & Bedeian, l994)

Career Identity (caril-4)

CARI 1. My career is an important part of who I am. [q76]

CARI 2. This career has a great deal of personal meaning to me. [q77]

CARI 3. I do not feel passionate about my career. [q78] (R)

CARI 4. I strongly identify with my chosen career. [q79]

Career Planning (cpl-4)

CARP1. I do not have a strategy for achieving my goals in my career. [q80] (R)

CARP 2. I have created a plan for my career development. [q81]

CARP 3. I have identified specific goals for my development. [q82]

CARP 4. I do not often think about my personal career development. [q83] (R)

Organizational Commitment (Gergersen and Black, l992)

Commitment to Parent Organization (cpol-4) (from measures at work).

CPO1. The reason I prefer this parent company to others is because of its values, or what it stands for. [q8]

CPO 2. I really care about the fate of this parent company. [q9]

CPO 3. I talk up this parent company to my friends as a great place to work. [q10]

CPO 4. What this parent company stands for is important to me. [q11]

Commitment to Local Firm (clfl-4) (from measures at work)

CLF1. What my local firm stands for is important to me. [q12]

CLF2. I really care about the fate of my local firm. [q13]

CLF3. I talk up my local firm to my friends as a great group to work with. [q14]

CLF4. The reason I prefer this local company to others is because of its values, or what it stands for. [q15]

AUTHORS' NOTE

Both authors contributed equally.

REFERENCES

Armenakis, A. A., J. B. Bernerth, J. P. Pitts & H. J. Walker (2007). Organizational change recipients' beliefs scale: Development of an assessment instrument. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 43(4), 481-505.

Armenakis, A. A., S. G. Harris & H. S. Field (1999). Making change permanent: A model for institutionalizing change interventions. Research in Organizational Change and Development , 12, 97-128.

Armenakis, A. A., S. G. Harris & K. W. Mossholder (1993). Creating readiness for organizational change. Human Relations, 46(6), 681-703.

Arnold, J., C. L. Cooper & I. Robertson (1998). Work psychology: Understanding human behavior in the workplace. London, FT/Pitman Publishing.

Arthur, J. B. (1994). Effects of human resource systems on manufacturing performance and turnover. The Academy of Management Journal, 37(3), 670-687.

Arthur, M. B. & D. M. Rousseau (2001). The Boundaryless Career: A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era. New York, USA: Oxford University Press US

Aryee, S. & K. Tan (1992). Antecedents and outcomes of career commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 40(3), 288-305.

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Blau, G. (1989). Testing the generalizability of a career commitment measure and its impact on employee turnover. Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 35, 88-103.

Blau, G. (2003). Testing a four-dimensional structure of occupational commitment. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 76, 469-88.

Blau, G. & K. Boal (1987). Conceptualizing how job involvement and organizational commitment affect turnover and absenteeism. Academy of Management Review, 12(2), 288-300.

Carson, K. D. & A. G. Bedeian (1994). Career Commitment: Construction of a Measure and Examination of Its Psychometric Properties. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 44(3), 237-262.

Carson, K., R. Carson, C. Roe, B. Birkenmeier & J. Phillips (1999). Four commitment profiles and their relationships with empowerment, service recovery and work attitudes. Public Personnel Management, 28, 1-11.

Cascio, W. (1982). Costing human resources the financial impact of behavior in organizations. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co..

Chang, E. (1999). Career commitment as a complex moderator of organizational commitment and turnover intention. Human Relations, 52, 1257-1278.

Clarke, J., C. Ellett, J. Bateman & J. Rugutt (1996). Faculty Receptivity/Resistance to change, personal and organizational efficacy, decision deprivation and effectiveness in research I universities. Proceedings of the Twenty-first Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

Cobb, A. T., K. Wooten & R. Folger (1995). Justice in the making: Toward understanding the theory and practice of justice in organizational change and development. In W. A. Pasmore & R. W. Woodman (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development (vol. 8) (pp. 243-295). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Cook, J. & T. D. Wall (1980). New work attitude measures of trust, organizational commitment and personal need nonfulfillment. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 53, 39-52.

Darden, W., R. Hampton & R. Howell (1989). Career vs. Organizational Commitment: Antecedents and Consequences of Retail Salespeople Commitment. Journal of Retailing, 65(1), 80-106.

Elving, W. J. & K. Bennebroek Gravenhorst (2009). Information, Communication, and Uncertainty During Organizational Change; the Role of Commitment and Trust. Proceedings of annual meeting of the International Communication Association.

Fedor, D. B., S. Caldwell & D. M. Herold (2006). The effects of organizational changes on employee commitment: A multilevel investigation. Personnel Psychology, 59, 1-26.

Fields, D. L. (2002). Taking the Measure of Work; A Guide to Validated Scales for Organizational Research and Diagnosis. CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Fornell, C., & D. F. Larcker (1981). Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unoberservable Variables and Measurement Error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18, 39-50.

Glaser, S. R., S. Zamanou and K. Hacker (1987). Measuring and interpreting organizational culture. Management Communication Quarterly , 1(2), 174-198.

Gregersen, H. B. (1992). Commitments to a Parent Company and a Local Work Unit during Repatriation. Personnel Psychology , 45, 29-54.

Herscovitch, L., & J. P. Meyer (2002). Commitment to organizational change. Journal of Applied Psychology , 87(3), 474-484.

Holt, D. T., A. A. Armenakis, H. S. Field & S. G. Harris (2007). Readiness for Organizational Change: The Systematic Development of a Scale. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science , 43(2), 232-255.

Huselid, M. A. (1995). The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance. The Academy of Management Journal , 38(3), 635-872.

Huselid, M. A. & N. E. Day (1991). Organizational commitment, job involvement, and turnover: A substantive and methodological analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 380-391.

Iverson, R. D. (1996). Employee acceptance of organizational change: the role of organizational commitment. International Journal ofHuman Resource Management , 7(1), 121-148.

Ketchand, A. A. & J. R. Strawser (2001). Multiple dimensions of organizational commitment: implications for future accounting research. Behavioral Research in Accounting, 13, 221-252.

Katz, D., & R. L. Kahn (1978). The social psychology of organizations. Canada: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Lee, K., J. J. Carswell & N. Allen (2000). A meta-analytic review of occupational commitment: Relations with personand work-related variables. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(5), 799-811.

Macduffie, J. P.(1995). Human resource bundles and manufacturing performance: Organizational logic and flexible production systems in the world auto industry. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48(2), 1995, 197-221.

Madsen, S. R., D. Miller & C. John (2005). Readiness for organizational change: Does organizational commitment and social relationships in the workplace make a difference. Human Resource Development Quarterly , 15(2), 213233.

Mathews, B. P. & J. L. Shepherd (2002). Dimensionality of Cook and Wall's (1980) British organizational commitment scale revisited. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology , 75, 369-375.

Mathieu, J. E. & S. R. Taylor (2006). Clarifying conditions and decision points for mediational type inferences in organizational behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27(8), 1031-1056.

Mathieu, J. E. & D. M. Zajac (1990). A review and meta-analysis of the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of organizational commitment. Psychological Bulletin, 108(2), 171-194.

McAulay, B. J., G. Zeitz & G. Blau (2006). Testing a "push-pull" theory of work commitment among organizational professionals. The Social Science Journal , 43, 571-596.

Meyer, J. P. & N. J. Allen (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1(1), 61-89.

Meyer, J. P. & N. J. Allen (1997). Commitment in the Workplace: Theory, Research, and Application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Meyer, J. P., N. J. Allen & I. R. Gellatly (1990). Affective and continuance commitment to the organization: evaluation of measures and analysis of concurrent and time-lagged relations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 710-720.

Meyer, J.P. & L. Herscovitch (2001). Commitment in the workplace: Toward a general model. Human Resource Management Review , 11, 299-326.

Meyer, J. P., S. V. Paunonen, I. R. Gellatly, R. D. Goffin, & D. N. Jackson (1989). Organizational commitment and job performance: It's the nature of the commitment that counts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(1), 152-156.

Moore, J. E. (2000). One Road to Turnover: An Examination of Work Exhaustion in Technology Professionals. MIS Quarterly, 24(1), 141-168.

Niehoff, B. P. & R. H. Moorman (1993). Justice as a mediator of the relationship between methods of monitoring and organizational citizenship behavior. The Academy of Management Journal, 36(3), 527-556.

O'Reily, C. A. & J. Chatman (1986). Organizational commitment and psychological attachment: The effects of compliance, identification and internalization on prosocial behavior. Journal of AppliedPsychology, 71(3), 492499.

Porter, L. W., R. M. Steers, R. T. Mowday & P. V. Boulian (1974). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric technicians. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 603- 609.

Rashid, H. (2006). Language of Change: Dynamics of Push-Pull Communication. Unpublished Executive doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University.

Rayton, B. A. (2006). Examining the interconnection ofjob satisfaction and organizational commitment: An application of the bivariate probit model. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 17(1), 139-154.

Remondet, J. H. & R. O. Hansson (1991). Job-related Threats to Control among Older Employees. Journal of Social Issues, 47, 129-141.

Shrout, P. E. & N. Bolger (2002). Mediation in Experimental and Nonexperimental Studies: New Procedures and Recommendations. Psychological method, 7(4), 422-445.

Somers, M. (1995). Organizational Commitment, turnover, and absenteeism: An examination of direct and indirect effects. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 16, 49-58.

Somers, M. & D. Birnbaum (2000). Exploring the Relationship Between Commitment Profiles and Work Attitudes, Employee Withdrawal, and Job Performance. Public Personnel Management , 29(3), 353-365.

Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. The Academy of Management Journal, 38(5), 1442-1465.

Trimble, D. E. (2006). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intention of missionaries. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 34, 349-360.

Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation. Wiley, New York, USA.

Humayun Rashid, University of Southern California

Lin Zhao, Purdue University Calumet

Table 1 Demographic Information of Survey Participants

           Gender                     Background

          Site 1   Site 2                     Site 1   Site 2

Male      65.0     85.4     Native            70.0     99.7
Female    35.0     14.6     Foreigner         30.0      0.3

           Age                     Level of Education

          Site 1   Site 2                     Site 1   Site 2

<25       12.9     14.6     High school        0.8      0.0
25-30     44.6     36.6     Diploma            6.7      1.8
31-35     22.9     31.1     College degree    75.4     42.1
36-40     12.5      9.8     Master or above   17.1     56.1
41-50      6.7      7.0
>50        4.0      0.9

Gender                    Job Status

                            Site 1            Site 2

Male      Full-time         79.2              98.5
Female    Contractor        20.8               1.5

Note: All numbers are in percentages.

Table 2 Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations for
the Study Constructs (a)

                                     1        2        3      4

1. Commitment to Change              1
2. Change Messages Effectiveness   .52 **     1
3. Organizational Commitment       .26 **   .31 **     1
4. Career Commitment                32 **    42 **    .45 **   1

                                   Mean   s. d.

1. Commitment to Change            5.26   0.94
2. Change Messages Effectiveness   4.6    0.94
3. Organizational Commitment       5.69   1.03
4. Career Commitment               5.7    0.84

(a) All constructs are measured by seven-point likert scale.

* p < .05

Table 3 Factor Loadings and Measurement Properties of Various Study
Constructs

                        1st Order   2nd Order   t-Value    Composite
                         Loading     Loading              Reliability

Commitment to Change                                         0.85
  CCA3                  0.88                      -
  CCA6                  0.84                    23.75
  CCN3                  0.51                    12.33
  CCN6                  0.4                      9.29
  CCC2                  0.61                    15.55
  CCC5                  0.6                     14.93

Change Message                                               0.92
    Effectiveness
  CMD2                  0.53                    12.97
  CMA2                  0.86                    24.11
  CMA4                  0.88                    25.19
  CMV1                  0.84                    23.17
  CMV3                  0.8                     21.64
  CMS1                  0.6                     15.02
  CME2                  0.78                    20.98
  CME4                  0.81                      -

Organizational                                               0.85
    Commitment
  CPO1                  0.81                      -
  CPO3                  0.76                    19.2
  CLF1                  0.67                    15.91
  CLF4                  0.83                    20.61

Career Commitment                                            0.85

Career Identity                       0.83        -
  CARI1                 0.84                    18.5
  CARI2                 0.91                    19.33
  CARI4                 0.71                      -

Career Planning                       0.67      11.08
  CARP1                 0.44                    10.31
  CARP2                 0.88                    22.65
  CARP3                 0.92                      -

Growth Opportunities                                         0.88
  GOPP2                 0.7                       -
  GOPP3                 0.92                    19.66
  GOPP4                 0.9                     19.2

Fairness of Rewards                                          0.92
  FOR1                  0.91                    15.38
  FOR2                  0.94                      -

Job Involvement                                              0.84
  JI1                   0.62                      -
  JI2                   0.78                    14.21
  JI3                   0.81                    14.23
  JI6                   0.71                    13.27

Competency                                                   0.89
  COMP1                 0.92                    18.99
  COMP2                 0.97                    19.64
  COMP3                 0.66                      -

                        Variance    Highest    Average
                        Extracted   Variance   Variance
                                     Shared     Shared

Commitment to Change       0.5        0.47       0.16
  CCA3
  CCA6
  CCN3
  CCN6
  CCC2
  CCC5

Change Message            0.59        0.47       0.19
    Effectiveness
  CMD2
  CMA2
  CMA4
  CMV1
  CMV3
  CMS1
  CME2
  CME4

Organizational             0.6        0.34       0.17
    Commitment
  CPO1
  CPO3
  CLF1
  CLF4

Career Commitment         0.49        0.4        0.24

Career Identity
  CARI1
  CARI2
  CARI4

Career Planning
  CARP1
  CARP2
  CARP3

Growth Opportunities      0.71        0.18       0.05
  GOPP2
  GOPP3
  GOPP4

Fairness of Rewards       0.85        0.13       0.05
  FOR1
  FOR2

Job Involvement           0.57        0.4        0.13
  JI1
  JI2
  JI3
  JI6

Competency                0.74        0.34       0.14
  COMP1
  COMP2
  COMP3

Notes: Loading = standardized coefficient estimate based on
the maximum likelihood estimation method using AMOS software.
t-values greater than 1.96 indicate significant effects at
p = .05 for a two-tailed test.

Composite reliability and variance extracted are based on
Fornell and Larcker's (1981) formula.

Average of the variance shared between the corresponding latent
construct and all other constructs; it is computed as the mean
of squared correlations.

Table 4 Estimated Coefficients for the Hypothesized Model

                                  Dependent Variables

                               Change Message   Commitment
                               Effectiveness     to Change
Independent Variables
Organizational Commitment      -.07 (.05)        .10 (.05)
Career Commitment              1.01 (.07)       -.14 (.10)
Change Message Effectiveness         -           .72 (.04)
Control Variables
Growth Opportunities                 -          -.16 (.04)
Fairness of Rewards                  -           .09 (.03)
Job Involvement                      -          -.22 (.06)
Competency                           -           .30 (.05)

Note: The results reported are unstandardized coefficients
following by standard error in parentheses. Coefficients
significant at p = .05 are in bold.